<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0The Sinclair men\u2019s basketball team finished the 2017-18 season 17-15 (6-10) and a loss in the NJCAA District 11 semi-finals to #2 seed Owens Community College. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s always mixed emotions when you get to the end of the season,\u201d head coach Jeff Price said. \u201cYou know you put a lot of work in, the guys put a lot of work in, and it\u2019s sometimes hard because we start pretty much the first day of classes and it always comes to an end.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The Tartan Pride were led in large part by OCCAC and NJCAA District 11 Player of the Year runner up LiDonta Hicks-Gentry. The 6\u20197\u201d sophomore forward from Fort Wayne, IN. averaged a double-double over the season, with 17.0 ppg and 10.1 rpg. He recorded 18 double-doubles over the season.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Hick-Gentry\u2019s play also earned him NJCAA District 11 and Region XII 1st Team honors, OCCAC All-Defensive Team honors, three OCCAC Player of the Week awards and NJCAA National Player of the Week.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u201c[The impact is] a two-fold, we have to replace someone who averaged a double-double,\u201d Price said. \u201cThe other side is it will open up new opportunities for the guys that are returning and our new recruits.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The Pride are planning on returning six players for next year, including freshmen guards Isaiah Trice and Quantes Jackson. Trice and Jackson were both awarded All-OCCAC Honorable Mention, and Jackson also made the OCCAC All-Freshman Team. They also are only the fourth set of teammates to have made 50 three-point shots in a single season and made were each the OCCAC Player of the Week once.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0With so many players returning next season, there will be high contrast to this season where the team only had two sophomores. According to Coach Price, this may have been a factor in their early postseason exit, despite playing some of their best basketball at the end of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWe were really young, and at critical times we made really young mistakes,\u201d Price said. \u201cBut the best thing about a freshman \u2013 they become sophomores.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The offseason has already started, and the team has eight hours per week to get time together, whether it be practicing certain techniques, conditioning or lifting weights. As long as players are registered for classes in the summer semester, they can continue with those eight hours per week.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u201c[This is when we work on] whatever we found throughout the year that was deficient,\u201d Price said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix it during the year because you\u2019re just preparing for the next game. You have two days to prepare for each game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The Pride will pick back up where they left off in November, when the 2018 season begins.<\/span><\/p>\n Paul Helmers<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0The Sinclair men\u2019s basketball team finished the 2017-18 season 17-15 (6-10) and a loss in the NJCAA District 11 semi-finals to #2 seed Owens Community College. \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s always mixed emotions when you get to the end of the season,\u201d head coach Jeff Price said. \u201cYou know you put a lot of work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":19775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2114,2102,2107,3],"tags":[589,2085,822,1383,930],"class_list":["post-19774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-campus-life","category-sports","category-tartan-news","tag-mens-basketball","tag-paul-helmers","tag-sinclair-basketball","tag-sports","tag-tartan-pride"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/men_s-basketball-_sinclair-athletics.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-58W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19776,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19774\/revisions\/19776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSports Editor<\/p>\n